Old Pabst Blue Ribbon Brewery in Chicago

[CMStPnP]

FYI-,

This is the Illinois Central Lakefront line and looks like they did good business with this former customer.    No idea where this was in Chicago but that white cement block building in the background kind of looks familiar.    I can't tell from the skyline where this is exactly.............anyone know?

https://i.etsystatic.com/14100656/r/il/eec9ff/1172352824/il_794xN.1172352824_paqq.jpg

 

[charlie hebdo]

Not sure which structure you meian.  The Wrigley Building is white, but marble clad.  I can also see the Railway Exchange (Santa Fe) Building closer to the camera.  The structure in the foreground is IC-related.

The sign is for PBR,  but their brewery was Milwaukee.

[diningcar]

Believe this is the IC yard near Randolph Street with Michigan Ave. on the left.

[CShaveRR]

diningcar

Believe this is the IC yard near Randolph Street with Michigan Ave. on the left.

That is correct--this is only a large sign, related to nothing else in particular in the scene.    Pretty sure the Prudential Building (at one time the tallest in the city) went up on this site in the late 1950s.  There are now quite a few buildings between there and the Tribune Tower, visible on the right edge of the sign.

[54light15]

I wonder what "Blended 33 to 1" means. I'm a beer geek, a former beer judge and home brewer but I have never heard a term like that before. 

[n012944]

54light15

I wonder what "Blended 33 to 1" means. I'm a beer geek, a former beer judge and home brewer but I have never heard a term like that before. 

 

 

[tree68]

Found the shadow of the Pabst sign in a 1952 aerial photo on Historicaerials.com.

It was near the current location of "Millenium Station."

[CShaveRR]

tree68

It was near the current location of "Millenium Station."

Yup...the station, formerly Randolph Sreet Station, is underneath the street and the Prudential Building.

I well remember being up in the observation deck on that buildng and watching IC yard crews kicking cars around in 1964.  None of that freight trackage is around any more.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Randolph Street Station (I still call it by that name) lost most of its character when Millenium Park was built over it.  The South Shore tracks are now under roof and the wood platforms are long gone.

[charlie hebdo]

The title of this thread is in error.  It's only a PBR sign,  not a brewery.

[Flintlock76]

charlie hebdo

It's only a PBR sign,  not a brewery.

More's the pity!  

[charlie hebdo]

Not a Chicago brew (Milwaukee's #4, behind Schlitz, Miller  Hi-life and Blatz in taste  ),  and in my opinion and memory,  it was regarded as p**s water around Chicago back in the day.

[Overmod]

charlie hebdo

Not a Chicago brew

An interesting point is that I believe the "33 to 1" is an artifact of Perlstein's attempt to make a 'consistent' product nationally with production from multiple physical breweries, not just by combining the results of different batches from different kettles in the same brewery.  It might be interesting to read the industrial history of how this was executed, as it was said to be one of the first attempts to create a national-scale product with consistent characteristics -- see the Waffle House basic menu for another particularly internally-promoted example.

If a camel is a horse designed by a committee, what is a beer produced by committee?  I suggest charlie hebdo already knows... 

[charlie hebdo]

Yes.  Awful House,  the Ptomaine (and meth) Palace.

There was a book on A&P and a TV series on Hershey,  Kellogg, Heinz. Mars and Post and Mickey Ds.   Whatever happened to Burger Chef? 

[Overmod]

charlie hebdo

There was a book on A&P

One of the things I studied intensively in marketing was how 'store brands' were made and 'positioned' over the years -- Ann Page being a particular example.  It was interesting to see how some organizations either missed the target or 'left money on the table' -- Pathmark being a particularly amusing example with their 'cut-rate' line of discount products that cost just as much to produce and package as many branded lines...

Sometimes the store brands are cost-minimizing, sometimes they reflect regional differences or pride, sometimes they represent an opportunity to go higher-end with better products (see Kroger's Private Selection and 'Simple Truth' brands for example) -- things that highly remind me of how intermodal yard operators would be involved with driveaway OTR moves... 

Whatever happened to Burger Chef?

Very reminiscent in a way of REA.  The chain was sold, as I recall to Hardee's circa 1982, within only a few years of its maximum expansion.  Hardee's converted the better locations to, well, Hardee's and took to closing the rest.  Took them almost a decade and a half to kill it off.

To this day I found their kid's program more attractive than that '30s-Disneyesque swill at McDonald's.  Of ocurse I also loved 'Linus the Lion-Hearted' as a kid in the '60s, so I'm not the poster child for discriminating advertising expediency from fun...

Every so often, you see companies killing off a core brand or identity for some reason or other.  Burger King essentially killed Carroll's and Wetson's -- not that there was too much actual long-term loss there -- to expand its core business brand.  New Coke (and Arch Deluxe etc at McDonalds) are examples where this failed in spades; Datsun is one that ... eventually ... had the desired effect.  (On the other side of one of the most colossally overpriced ridiculous agency campaigns -- remember 'Built for the Human Race"?  I sure do...)

[Overmod]

charlie hebdo

... Awful House

You know, there is a better one, that is used in some contexts at WHU.  You do NOT want to run an Offal House...

[Flintlock76]

Overmod

 

 

charlie hebdo

... Awful House

 

 

You know, there is a better one, that is used in some contexts at WHU.  You do NOT want to run an Offal House...

 

 

Hey!  I LIKE that place!

How can you NOT like a place where you have to show a pack of cigarettes to get in?   

[CMStPnP]

OK, for some reason I thought it was a Brewery as well, makes sense if is only a sign.

[54light15]

40 years ago I drank PBR in long-neck 16 oz. bar bottles that came in a heavy brown carton. It was cheap and fresh from a brewery in Newark, N.J. and it tasted a lot better than the PBR you could buy in a 7-11. There were deposits on the bottles long before there was a deposit law in New York and the beer distributor where I bought it demanded them back so they could be sent back to the brewery. I don't know if that was a Pabst-owned plant or a contract brewer but it closed down after an extended strike in the late 1980s. 

The two brothers that ran the distributor had both worked for F. M. Schaefer years before and they lent me a box of "The Blue Book," a brewers guide book that listed every brewery in North America and some of the books went back to the 1930s. Fascinating reading; it told you where to get barrels, dispensing and brewing vessels and I learned what was involved to get a hopper car of barley delivered or finished beer taken away by box car. 

[charlie hebdo]

Grab It Here... "Where ma saves pa's dough"   Presumably this grocery chain js now either defunct or changed the name and slogan. 

Pick n Save.  Shrunk in numbers,  but still exists in Milwaukee,  I believe.

[Overmod]

54light15

40 years ago I drank PBR in long-neck 16 oz. bar bottles that came in a heavy brown carton. It was cheap and fresh from a brewery in Newark, N.J. and it tasted a lot better than the PBR you could buy in a 7-11.

Some of the best beer in the world was Budweiser... made exactly the same way in the same heavy dark-amber bottles in their Newark brewery.  They came in special heavy cartons, and were supposedly unavailable beyond a certain (rather short) radius from the brewery, by 'special order' only; they were never subject to excessive heat or vibration; they were never more than about 6 weeks past what would later be termed the 'born-on' date.  And yes, you had to get the empties back ASAP and the store would call you if you lallygagged.

When I was 9 my father would give me the 'first sip' from one of those heavy, cold bottles -- it was a delight, and I wish they could still provide it.

I suspect the same problem characterized these as did the 20oz longneck returnable Cokes in Doylestown and the Mexican glass bottles for Glen Summit water -- too much market on eBay compared to the deposit.  Then there was all that cleaning and sanitizing.  

[54light15]

When I couldn't get Pabst, I drank Budweiser in those same heavy long neck bottles. It was fresh and pretty good compared to the Bud that was available in grocery stores. The long necks in the heavy carton was only available at a beer distributor. I stopped with the Bud when I started home brewing. I don't home brew anymore as the styles I used to make are widely available now. 

Some friends are very into collecting brewery memorabilia and it's interesting how brewing and railroads kind of grew up together. One guy has a large lithograph of a long-gone Toronto brewery and it shows the tracks running through the place with little puffing 4-4-0 locos running around. 

[tree68]

I handled a lot of those heavy cardboard beer cases (24 long necks) when I worked at a "party store" (a Michigan combination of a liquor store and a convenience store) in the 1960's.  

And we sold a lot of beer by the case. 

[charlie hebdo]

tree68

I handled a lot of those heavy cardboard beer cases (24 long necks) when I worked at a "party store" (a Michigan combination of a liquor store and a convenience store) in the 1960's.  

And we sold a lot of beer by the case. 

 

Ah yes,  those Michigan party stores.  Some fond memories of Strohs!!

[NittanyLion]

Overmod

Every so often, you see companies killing off a core brand or identity for some reason or other.  Burger King essentially killed Carroll's and Wetson's -- not that there was too much actual long-term loss there -- to expand its core business brand.  New Coke (and Arch Deluxe etc at McDonalds) are examples where this failed in spades; Datsun is one that ... eventually ... had the desired effect.  (On the other side of one of the most colossally overpriced ridiculous agency campaigns -- remember 'Built for the Human Race"?  I sure do...)

 

I will always think Macy's made a mistake in dissolving some of the old department store titans that had deep cultural ties in their cities, like Field's, Filene's, Kaufmann's, and Hecht's

[BaltACD]

NittanyLion

 

Overmod

Every so often, you see companies killing off a core brand or identity for some reason or other.  Burger King essentially killed Carroll's and Wetson's -- not that there was too much actual long-term loss there -- to expand its core business brand.  New Coke (and Arch Deluxe etc at McDonalds) are examples where this failed in spades; Datsun is one that ... eventually ... had the desired effect.  (On the other side of one of the most colossally overpriced ridiculous agency campaigns -- remember 'Built for the Human Race"?  I sure do...) 

I will always think Macy's made a mistake in dissolving some of the old department store titans that had deep cultural ties in their cities, like Field's, Filene's, Kaufmann's, and Hecht's

Agree whole heartedly!  And in the world of Covid they are paying for it.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

Don't shed too many tears for Field's.  They pulled the same stunt when they purchased J. L. Hudson's in Detroit.  Also, it appeared around here that the biggest complainers about the disappearance of the Field's brand were those who couldn't afford to shop there in the first place.

[tree68]

charlie hebdo

Some fond memories of Strohs!

Stroh's gives me a headache, unfortunately, and not because of excessive consumption.

The brewery was a popular spot for "tours" by local college students, mostly for the free beer at the end of the tour.

Strohs also made ice cream.  I worked at the concession stand at Camp Dearborn after graduation from high school.  Handled a lot of those three gallon cans, and the girls certainly earned their pay scooping it out.

[54light15]

Ahh- the Michigan party stores! The best beer store in the whole world is the Main Street Party Store on Main street, (natch) in Ann Arbor. I have never seen such a selection anywhere in North America or Europe. What a place! 

[Gramp]

All those studious Wolverines, lol.